She said: “I’m not going to leave it. I think there’s been a complete miscarriage of justice.

“I saw someone else in the paper who got eight months prison just for speaking about doing something to a girl but McIntyre got nothing for completely violating her. Her took her virginity that day.

“It beggars belief. I can’t make any sense out of the sentence at all.

“I felt as a parent I let her down by not discouraging her from going through the court system. I thought it wasn’t worth the effort of putting her through it.

“We believed in the system and feel badly let down.

“I feel like a toothless tiger. We have understanding and intelligence and we believed in the justice system but from personal experience we were totally wrong.”

McIntyre was just 16 when he met up with the girl, who he knew from an air cadets squadron in Whitley Bay, and had sex with her in a field, in May 2013.

Sentencing the teenager, Judge Robert Adams said the victim was “immature for her age” and said McIntyre had been warned she was vulnerable.

The judge said: “The prosecution say it would have been obvious to you she had difficulties and was vulnerable.

“As a result of these actions by you she had to change school and I have been told of self harm by her. She ended up having to go to hospital.

“What is clear is these actions, in part, have had a devastating effect on her. She already had difficulties.

“There has been an obvious deterioration in her wellbeing and she has taken a series of overdoses. She contacted Child Line after one of the overdoses and it appears that may have saved her life.”

After having sex with her, McIntyre then asked the schoolgirl to send him intimate pictures of herself, the court heard.

McIntyre, of Links Avenue, Whitley Bay, admitted three counts of sexual activity with a child and one of inciting a child into sexual activity.

He was given nine months in a young offender institution, suspended for two years, with supervision, 100 hours of unpaid work, a three month curfew, a requirement to do a sex offender treatment programme and a restraining order banning him from contacting the victim.

Judge Adams said: “I’ve considered whether this must be immediate custody.

“If I was to send you custody the reality is you would only serve a short period and there would be little time for any work to take place with you.

“In my view it’s not only in your interests to make this a suspended sentence but it’s also in the best interests of the public to make sure you don’t commit this type of offence ever again.”

The judge added: “There’s a positive side to your nature and you were only a child yourself at the time of these offences.

“You come from a close-knit and loving family and you have matured since the offences.”

The court heard McIntyre had been unable to do a college course as a result of the offences and has put his hopes of joining the Army in jeopardy.

Judge Adams said he was vulnerable and had been acting under peer pressure.

The judge said: “You no doubt felt under pressure to behave in the way your friends were but she was only 14 and a vulnerable young girl and you knew that.”